February 2013 Monthly Review

I had a pretty productive and busy february, as H and I worked a lot on the bathroom. We are now basically able to use everything up there. The shower, the loo and the sink are all functional, the room just does not have a door quite yet. We still need to do some work with the door frame (that we dont really know how to do) before guests would feel comfortable using it. Hopefully we can get the door put on soon.

Debt:

These are all of my debts. Right now, that includes a vehicle loan, a mortgage and 1 student loan. When I started, I had 3 credit cards, 3 student loans and no vehicle loans. Everything that I’m still paying off now (with the exception of the student loan) has been incurred since I’ve tried to become debt free. Funny how that works out, eh?

House

Mortgage $118,001 ($537) – Same monthly payment here. Approximately half of our payment goes to interest, which I’m oddly ok with. In normal times of higher interest rates, it’d be closer to 75-80% and we’d hardly be making any headway. Low interest rates and a low amount borrowed really helped us here.

Student Loans

Great Lakes Loan $9,077 ($134) I bumped this up to 175 a while back, but this is going down slowly. I think it’s about time I start to treat my debt like the emergency that it is, instead of the waffling I’ve been doing since 2010.

Truck Loan

Ford Credit: $3,109 ($646): H and I have a goal to pay this off at the end of Q2, and it looks like we are doing just fine. We are trucking along on this, I sent them a double payment again this month. As of right now if we keep going the way we are going, it will take 4.7 months to pay it off, so we are going to have to bump that up a touch at some point to knock it down by the end of june.

Total Debt: 131, 504 ($766) – This is a lower per amount reduction than normal, but it’s because of the timing of the mortgage payment. High, but I’m still OK with it.

Health Goals

This year, I’m working 1 month at a time on my health goals. In january, my focus was on going to the gym and working out consistently. That went pretty well, though lately I’ve hit a bit of a plateau that I’m working my way though. In february, I focused on changing my diet so that I’m eating 6 meals per day. I’m still adjusting to that, and it’s required some focus. I need to pack meals & snacks for when I go to work, and I need to watch myself when I’m having dinner out with friends (with middling success, I may add). In march, I havent decided what to focus on quite yet, but i’ll let you know as soon as I find it – most likely it will be running (though that could prove difficult.

I’m still carrying my pack to work to train for the death race, and I add weight to it at the beginning of every month. I’d guess it’s about 30 lbs right now, but I’m not sure – our scale at home doesnt work very well.

Goal Workouts: 20

Total Workouts: 35

Still didnt figure out a new metric for this, but basically I’m working out in the morning at the gym, and I’m running tuesday, wednesday, thursday, saturday and sunday. I thought I was going to do a 50k race in late may, but i’m having second thoughts. I’m not sure I want to beat my body up that much that close to the race, and I’m also having a difficult time training. Winter here is much worse than it was last year – we’ve gotten lots more snow, and it’s been a lot colder and windier.